between what you wanted and what you got
by hyacinthian
Summary: Rachel's mad at him. He doesn't really know why. RachelFinn.


A/N: Beta by squee1123 on LiveJournal. Post 1x02. Song from Avenue Q.

* * *

When Quinn is in the bathroom with Santana, doing god knows what, he turns to Mercedes. "I don't think Rachel's talking to me."

Mercedes doesn't even blink, just turns the page of her Us Weekly noisily. "No shit, Sherlock."

"Do you – do you know why?"

Mercedes slides her tongue along the bottoms of her teeth, clicks her tongue. "Do I _look _like Miss Cleo to you? Let me tell you something, if you want to know why she's not talking to you, why don't you go and try and figure out what the hell you did wrong?"

"I did something wrong?"

She groans. "Oh, you are beyond help."

-

Rachel's working on her homework when he comes up to her. "Hi, Rachel."

"Finn." There's no hiding it. She hates him.

"Um, yeah, hi."

"You already said hi."

He shuffles closer to her. "I heard what Mr. Schue did with your solo."

The lead on her pencil snaps. "Is this going anywhere, Finn?"

He blinks. "What?"

"This conversation," she says, with an eye roll. "Listen, we weren't best friends or anything. So we kissed. You were hung-up on your hormones from Quinn and that –" She splutters for a second, "Balloon. We really don't have anything else to talk about besides glee, so if you don't mind, I'm very busy."

"Rachel."

She taps her pencil. "I have a lot of homework, Finn."

He sighs. "Yeah."

-

How dare he, she thinks as she walks home after Glee. Playing around with her emotions is one thing but to come up to her afterward and pretend like he doesn't know what he's doing. She rolls her eyes. He probably doesn't know what he's doing. Sometimes, Finn is the most aggravatingly clueless person she knows.

When she gets home, she slams the door a little too loudly.

"Rach, darling," her daddy calls. "Remember the lawsuit! Your dad and I are still having trouble finding a lawyer!"

She sighs. "Yes, daddy."

-

She can't even think of a MySpace video to post, she's so mad. And she knew, going into it, that she shouldn't have been messing around with someone who had a girlfriend, but he just seemed so… open and charming and nice. Rachel knows how unrequited love works. She hasn't been interested in musical theater for nothing, okay? And if there's anything all musicals have in common, there is resentment and at least a little bit of unrequited love. She was totally prepared for the commitment that pining after someone required, and she was, except for everything that the musicals don't talk about. There's the tiny bit of resentment and the bitterness and the impatience and the frustration of waiting on someone who doesn't know you exist.

But then, of course, the other shoe drops.

She screams her frustration into a perfectly pink pillow.

-

Finn calls her after dinner.

She tries to think of what Liza Minnelli would do. Broadway divas who deserve their solos would greet their detractors with calm, controlled coolness, she decides, and not think about totally undignified things like ways to kill certain cheerleaders with their own pom-poms. "Hello."

"Would you at least talk to me?"

"I'm talking. It's not my fault if my time is limited, Finn. I'm involved in a lot of organizations, not just glee. It's important to be a well-rounded candidate if I'm going to get into Julliard."

"I know, I know. I'm just – I'm confused."

She sighs. "There's nothing to be confused about."

"I don't understand. I'm sorry if the kiss was – you know, I didn't mean for you to take it the wrong way…"

She casts a glance at the clock. "Trust me, I didn't take it the wrong way. Sorry, I have to go. My dads need help finding a lawyer."

She hangs up.

-

When the phone rings again, she picks up angrily. "Hello?"

"Chill out," she hears a smooth voice deadpan.

"Kurt?"

"Yeah, listen. You need to talk to boy toy before he starts assuming that I'm the gay friend with a window into the straight girl soul, okay?"

"Kurt, you of all people should understand!"

"I of all people? What do you mean, _I of all people_?"

"Besides me, I'd say you're the second-most knowledgeable person of musical theater in our entire group, and if there's anything that musical theater as a genre encompasses, it's the feeling of unrequited love and bitterness – I mean, just look at West Side Story – and those kids _killed _themselves, though I don't even know why – granted, I'm sure the gangs in East Compton are a lot more vicious than the ones in the '60s with their_ coup de piet pirouettes_ in the middle of 6th Ave, but—"

"Rachel, we live in Ohio. Not East Compton." He pauses. "And I'm sorry, you said unrequited love?"

"He kissed me! He went and did that, and how am I supposed to react that? There's no proper reaction to something of this magnitude. He has Quinn, despite the fact that her ideal career would be to live under a bridge and torture children and goats, who is president of the Chastity Club, an institution designed to torture boys with their own anatomy, who refers to contraception as _the C word,_ okay? This is a dire situation."

"I did not sign up to be your Dr. Phil."

"I'm sorry," she says, breathlessly. "It's a habit."

"To ramble before anyone can interrupt, I know."

"I talked to Ms. Pillsbury."

"And what, she suggested you switch to a hand wipe with a little more bleach for its money?"

She laughs.

"Listen, Rachel. Despite my opinions about your decidedly vocal opinion about what we should do or sing or breathe or eat, you're still … not a Cheerio."

She blinks. "Thank you?"

"And with a status that qualifies you as human, I think that you're fine."

"I'm fine?"

"If someone doesn't _requite_ your love, then forget about them. No matter how cute they may be."

"Thanks."

"That being said, I think we should form a truce with the others until we get enough members to haze the Cheerios out of existence."

"I wouldn't be against that idea."

"Good. Um."

"Good night, Kurt."

-

At eleven at night, even though she knows her fathers want her to be in bed, she sets up the video camera.

Staring straight at the aperture, she starts singing as the karaoke instrumental she pulled from the Internet starts playing.

_I guess if someone doesn't love you back  
It isn't such a crime  
But there's a fine, fine line  
Between love and a waste of your time._

-


End file.
